Tirupur Exporters’ Association popularly known as TEA was set up in the year 1990 in Tirupur under the dynamic leadership of Dr. A.Sakthivel and has been doing yeoman service for the development of exports and also Tirupur. TEA has always been very quick in taking up the issues and stand in forefront to get them addressed. As on December 2016, TEA is consisting of 977 knitwear exporters as members.

When TEA was formed in 1990, Tirupur exports was Rs.290 Crores and Dr. Sakthivel had a vision and set a target of Rs.1,000 crores exports from Tirupur in next five years and Tirupur knitwear sector fulfilled his vision, and achieved it in 1993 itself. His dream has been always to make Tirupur as a vibrant knitwear cluster under Global outsourcing for everything in knitwear. The exports was always marching ahead despite a lot of hurdles and from a meager Rs.10 crores in 1985, it reached Rs.5000 crores in 2003, and Rs.23,000 Crores in 2015-16 is a performance that has no parallel anywhere in the world.

Dr. A.Sakthivel became a Executive Member of Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) from 1984 and since then he was very particular in promoting the exports from Tirupur and was constantly encouraging many entrepreneurs to become exporters. To provide knowledge on the exports field, Dr. A.Sakthivel had organized a lot of workshops and seminars on Documentation, Marketing, Finance and Exim Policies etc,

Dr. A. Sakthivel was a president till September 2016

Shri. Raja M Shanmugham of M/s. Warsaw International has taken over as President of TEA for the Period 2016-2019 and he is currently mentor of NIFT TEA Knitwear Fashion Institute, Tirupur. He is keeping a long term vision for Tirupur and was a guiding force to prepare the vision document 2020, with an intension for Tirupur Business clocking Rs. 1,00,000 Crores in the year 2020. After assuming as a President of TEA, he constituted 20 Subcommittees to address the issues in respective areas and implement the requirements of Tirupur Business to reach the Vision 2020. The new committees are working with zeal and are meeting regularly to discuss and to implement the tasks assigned to the committee.